Trying to make sense of my World. I write about digital transformation, purpose and culture change for better business.

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Also referred to as ‘Gen X’, ‘Baby Boomers’ or the ‘Grey Panther’, the ‘Elastic Generation’ are often forgotten about. They get their name from the fact that they keep ‘bouncing back’.

Living during a time when the three life stages were still held as truth (education, married with children, retirement), they were able to bounce back from the belief that 50 and 60 year olds were ‘past it’.

However, the average baby born today is meant to have a life expectancy of 142 years old!

That changes things a bit, right?

In fact, this generation are the most confident with themselves, and much wealthier than the younger generations. This is giving way to a generation of people who are new parents, experiencing ‘grey gap years’, entrepreneurs, and returning students.

We’re not giving this generation enough credit.

This generation invented the internet. Yet, we patronise them for being digitally inept. We stereotype them into grey haired, sensible-clothed incontinent grandparents who are only interested in Saga holidays, life insurance and talking about the weather.

It is often thought that the media is a mirror to society. However, brands are not paying them enough attention. 74% of this generation say that brands are not relevant for them and as a result, pay no attention to ads. Yet, this generation are potentially the most financially lucrative customers.

There are two main issues contributing to the relevance deficiency:

Advertisers are spending just 5% of their ad spend targeting this group currently.

Images are not a true reflection of this generation, and are causing them to feel patronised and stereotyped.

When you compare the images below with the images above, you can see the monumental chasm between how this generation is perceived by society and brands (above), and the reality of how this generation look and feel (below).

So let’s stop focusing all of our attention on Millennials and Gen Z, but start celebrating the elastic generation and the contribution they make.

The key is fully understanding the regulations, doing what is right for the consumer and doing ‘compliance by design’.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

The GDPR became law on 25th May 2016, but doesn’t come into force until the 25th May 2018.

This will affect all data processors.

Brexit may mean that changes to these regulations is likely to occur again. However, it is certain that there will be some regulations similar to these.

In summary, there is a new definition of what constitutes personal data – it now also includes ‘any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person’. This means that the majority of online data is now considered personal data – including data such as IP addresses (when put with another bit of data with it, for example).

The regulations also set out a range of new and clarified consumer rights and organisation obligations, including:

Consumer consent has to be unambiguous. Therefore there needs to be a clear affirmative action.

This means:

‘silence or pre-ticked boxes’ do not constitute consent

Some channels may suffer as a result, so statements and wording needs to be optimised to limit impact. It is recommended to assess the impact that ‘opt-in’ may have on the database.

2. Consumers have the right to privacy by default. Therefore permission must be actively collected.

This means:

Opt-in/out boxes cannot be set to ‘in’

Privacy settings must be set to block contact and consumers must have to un-tick a box in order to receive marketing comms.

3. Consumers have the right to the erasure of personal information (also known as ‘the right to be forgotten’). This is one of my favourite subjects to discuss at the moment.

This means:

Some data can be retained in order to remember you have forgotten but this must be minimised – for example, the customer’s name and the fact they’ve asked to be forgotten

If the customer forgets they wanted to be forgotten, the latest consent will always override previous requests.

4. Consumers have the right to data portability. Therefore it should be easy for consumers to switch providers.

5. Consumers have the right to privacy by design. Therefore data protection must be visibly planned into projects from the outset.

This means:

Data protection assessment must be completed for new tech or new data

Record keeping and audit trails will be required

A data protection officer role must be recruited

6. The right to opt-out of profiling and associated processes. Therefore some profiling will now need consent.

This means:

Any automated processing which evaluates personal interests or predicts and analyses people may need consent

Profiling with ‘legal effects’ will need explicit consent and profiling for direct marketing will need an ‘opt out’ model.

7. A new definition of what constitutes a data breach. Therefore there must be a new process for a data breach.

This means:

Organisations must inform the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) no later than 72 hours after the breach has been discovered

If it is a high risk, it must be communicated with consumers in plain language

I have a passion for helping big organisations transform and adapt to the changing and complex, connected world we live in today.

I also feel a great deal of sadness when I see high street shops close down. Empty buildings in my home town is becoming the new norm. The once bright lights, buzz, a place to socialise and enjoy an experience together. Now its full of sad, grey empty shells.

But I also love internet shopping. Who couldn’t say they enjoy the perks of getting whatever you want at the touch of a button in your own home? The likes of Boohoo.com and Wish.com leading the way in the female fashion world really have taken the industry by storm – with highly competitive pricing, choice and excellent customer experience. The digital highstreet is an enjoyable place to be.

But there’s still something about the physical high street that I long for. And the ability to try things on still remains an advantage.

So what can we do to keep our shops? Here are some thoughts I had whilst sitting on the train the other day:

1. Understanding customers

Why are all shops on the high street open at the same time? Surely some people only want to buy things at certain times.

The internet is open 24hours a day. While that’s probably a unrealistic target, how about closing on weekdays and opening in the evenings? I reckon shops need to reconsider what they know about their customers behaviour and do something different.

2. The shopping experience

The only way to compete with the online space is to do what it does, better.

For most big retailers they have the advantage of already having a solid loyal customer base. Shops need to hold on to them – Offer them the ability to check out other prices, other brands. And make sure yours is the best. The tech is already available.

One of the best usp’s for high street shops is ability to try things on. Make your changing rooms a big deal and a good experience. Make them big, have big mirrors, make them social and put the fun back into shopping with friends. That’s the real USP of the high street. Go over the top – offer refreshments and other perks.

3. Connect on and offline

Shops need to make the experience visible and appeal to their online audience.

They should get them talking to other customers and sharing their offline experience, online. They should get reviews up in the shop, make it easy to see what “people like them” bought with those shoes etc. It’s all about making the experience as easy as online.

I couldn’t possibly miss this one out. It’s by far my favourite – its mission is literally to ‘provide universal access to the world’s best education’.

Coursera is a platfrom that partners with top universities and organisations around the world, to offer courses online for anyone to take.

There are hundreds of different courses available at different times which include short video lectures, interactive quizzes, peer graded assessments and a forum to connect with other learners and instructors. There’s even an option to purchase a certificate after you complete the course for a small fee.

Another one from Google. This one’s great because the very first step once you’ve signed up is to take a survey which then helps create a personalised learning plan with different lessons just for you based on your goals. The videos are beautiful too!

Okay, so I haven’t used this platform yet but I’ve signed up to a ‘Transmedia Storytelling’ MOOC that starts at the end of January, so I’ll let you know how that goes…

It’s got some pretty good reviews and its run by a privately owned company owned by the Open University with 76 partners around the world including the British Library, the National Film and Television School, professional bodies such as the ACCA, and businesses like the BBC.

There are tons of courses ranging in length – from three weeks to ten weeks long – the subjects are also diverse and the videos look good too.

I completed the ‘Digital Analytics Fundamentals’ course – a subject I really knew very little about. It covers what data is most important for different business objectives, analysis techniques (e.g. segmentation and context), conversions, attribution, creating a measurement plan and a deep dive into Google Analytic reports.

All in all a very thorough overview from a trusted source.

There are also more specialist courses such as ‘Google Tag Manager Fundamentals’ and ‘Mobile App Analytics’.

This one’s interesting because anyone can apply to run a course (as long as you meet the criteria).

Lots of MOOCs available, specific to the digital industry. Only some courses have certificates, so check before enrolling if that’s important to you. There’s also a good discussion network where you can chat with other participants, to help you along the way.

Peter Druker once said the role of a business is to create value for its customers. That branding was something separate and extrinsic to the business and lives in the mind of customers.

Business academics are now starting to realise it’s something more than that. It’s intrinsic and helps drive customer behaviour. The brand is actually a dynamic sequence of experiences, and the role of the business is to deliver these different experiences to the customers.

Disney is a great example of this. Former CEO, Michael Eisner once said; “A brand is a living entity – and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures”. Disney do this so well that words, like ‘magical’ will trigger people to think of Disney before any other brand.

And if I say “innovation”, you’ll probably think of Apple.

That’s because everything it does – from it’s design, customer service, product launches and retail experience fuel the customer experience. Its brand is not something that can simply be drawn up in an advert.

Strong branding is becoming more prevalent in today’s world of business; with commoditisation which is being driven by the internet, increasing consumer power and demands, ‘copy-cat’ products, and highly competitive pricing.

And because of this, it’s becoming increasingly important to every sector (insurance companies spring to mind), that customer experience is the new marketing.

So, what does this mean for organisations?

Well, if branding is the customer experience, then it needs to be part of a bigger thing. It requires deeper engagement with different departments – HR, IT, customer service etc, etc. and a wider understanding of the bigger picture.

This means ways of working is changing, ways of measuring brand health is changing and ways of measuring success is changing.

The solution?

Newton’s Cradle.

This is a metaphor for the role of management in an organisation – which is to align the business with the brand and customer behaviour across the organisation.

This hasn’t always worked out so easily in the past. So many projects fail and so many organisations fail because they’re too big to function. There’s simply too many people who are pulling in different directions. Each department has its own targets, own culture and own way of doing things. But this doesn’t make sense.

I’ve only ever worked in small agencies, but working with my clients, who are mostly large brands, has made me see just how difficult it is trying to work across silos to make anything happen.

In a small agency of course, you don’t have that problem. Everyone you need to help you is in that same room. Which is why, at small agencies, such a great deal of learning happens – because you’re able to share and collaborate with so many different people in a short space of time. And as a result, get things done quickly for the client which may have taken them months to years to achieve in house. I’d also argue that there’s more alignment which means a consistent customer experience – because you all have access to the same information.

So, we know collaboration is key. I’ve seen lots of different ways of attempting to tackle this problem; whether it’s using enterprise social networks and other technology, or the example from Google about making staff queue at lunchtimes to encourage collaboration. Some organisations have project steering groups which I think actually work quite well at times, but it still means having to round people up from across the organisation to get stuff done, which can be a big challenge. This has a massive effect on time and morale. But also innovation and customer experience can become damaged in the process.

Customer Hubs

Customer Hubs is a concept introduced by Martin Hill-Wilson. It tackles all of these problems with what is essentially a very simple solution – one I wish I’d thought of. In the most simplest form, it is a physical space where the best people from around the organisation can come together to learn together, work together and make decisions.

It builds on the idea of social command centers – where more real time knowledge about the customer can be accessed more than ever before.

The idea is that this group of people together can provide more value than the sum of its parts. If you get people from marketing, sales, IT, HR, brand, customer service etc. making decisions, it will behave like a catalyst for customer experience and innovation – and the brand.

Just like Newton’s Cradle, customer hubs is about alignment to get things moving. It’s about being able to move as fast as a smaller more agile organisation but having the advantage of staying big.

If you haven’t heard the news about the changes to NixonMcInnes you can read up the full detail here.

In short, NM have decided to decentralise the business and many of the consultants will become associates and spinning off their own initiatives.

For me, these changes mean something BIG, SCARY but very EXCITING!

….I will be starting up my own business with Danielle Sheerin as my business partner, launching February 1st!

We will be calling ourselves BrightCultures and we will be focusing on digital transformation.

Specifically our focus will be on helping organisations to align their digital strategies, cultures and leadership, to help them thrive in a complex, uncertain world.

We know that digital and social technologies have changed the ways that the business world operates and organisations need to adapt to meet this challenge; to thrive in the post digital world they need to be authentic, innovative and collaborative.

This is where BrightCultures can help:

working with organisations to understand what this shift means for each part of their operations, for example, customer experience, innovation, internal comms, etc

evolving digital, social and comms strategies accordingly

supporting them to build their capabilities internally and implement these strategies effectively

and creating a climate that allows them to deliver responsive and resilient digital leadership at all levels of the organisation

I’ll include our BrightCultures website soon, but for now, I’d like everyone reading this blog to keep us in mind for anything and spread the word.

Massive thanks to all those who have supported us so far including Tom Nixon, Nick Shepherd and Leesa Albrighton to name a few….sending you all lots of love and happiness for the New Year! Let’s rock 2015!

There’s *so* much I could say about this years’ Meaning – our annual conference for people who believe in better business.

Here were my top 10 highlights:

1. Joel and Michelle Levey’s rockstar-like appearance

These mindfulness legends have 90 years worth of experience learning, teaching and embodying mindfulness. Watching these guys talking about their work – involving the (once secret) ‘Jedi Warrior’ training they designed for the U.S. Army and how they bring mindfulness into modern business practices, such as the G-Pause at Google – makes me feel in complete ore.

I’ve always enjoyed Mark’s comical presentation style – making us all constantly question ‘normality’ – is his doctor a racist?

3. The ‘before I die’ boards

4. Comedy from Bob Doak

It’s always great to have someone talking about better business from a massively successful global company, but when Bob Doak’s making the crowd crease with laughter, it’s even better.

5. Lunch!

They say the best learning’s at conferences happen in the breaks. There was a real sense of community over lunch this year over a beautifully hot Greek meal and conversation cards to help keep the conversation flowing.

6. Neil Mullarkey’s energetic close

I’ve always loved watching Neil on ‘Who’s Line Is It Anyway?’ and I had very high expectations but he didn’t disappoint. His approach to applied improv was brilliant and useful.

7. The sense of community

Everyone who participated in the workshops, the brave volunteers who were pulled up on stage by Neil Mullarkey and Karen Pine from DSD who jumped up on stage at the last minute to encourage us all to take action.

8. Iain Chambers’ inspirational return to the stage

Conferences are great for inspiration and for learning new things, but they are extremely powerful when they actually help you to deliver action. Iain’s story demonstrates this so nicely.

Alex’s talk on ‘how to be a workplace rebel’ demanded we all take action and be the changemakers we want to see. He invited us to look at the funny side of conformity and to stay unique, unlike these guys